It does communicate a bit, even if it's confusingly worded and targeted to a specific audience.

Material Design has two parts: A physical structure based on how objects lie in the real world (particularly inspired by the physical appearance paper and ink), and animations that seem magical, playful, or imaginative.

This lays out the inspiration behind material design, and differentiates it from skeumorphism: which copies real world elements unimaginatively, and simple "flat" design, which is not necessarily tactile or imbued with a system of animations or motion.